Doctoral Dissertation Research: Media, Social Context and Public Discourse

帕梅拉·E放大图片作者：奥利弗（PI）Brinson（Co-PI）机构：威斯康星州，麦迪逊大学标题：博士论文研究：媒体，社会背景，和公共话语0828479摘要本研究项目将研究的过程中，不同群体的人从他们的认知信仰，态度，感情，和道德价值观，以发展有关同性婚姻和民事结合的具体意见。 数据将通过对生活在美国中西部的人进行焦点小组访谈来收集，以分析人们如何谈论、构思和理解同性婚姻和工会。 其中一个目标是研究人们如何在构建关于有争议问题的观点时调动文化理解。这个项目使用的情况下，同性婚姻和民事结合，以研究人们如何受到限制？结构？以及人们如何使用文化？务实？才能让辩论更有意义 重点小组的参与者将来自民间社会现有的各种团体，以确保各团体之间的观点多样化。焦点小组讨论的记录将被编码，并进行定性和定量分析。一个层次的分析将确定小组讨论中的话语相似性和差异，包括小组动力，文化态度和信仰，框架，同意和不同意的观点，以及论证逻辑和资源。 第二个层次的分析将论述的相似性和差异与群体之间的差异联系起来。将特别注意每个群体中相互作用的意识形态和社会背景之间的差异，包括年轻一代和老一代之间的话语差异，以及重点群体所来自的民间社会群体之间的话语差异（例如娱乐、宗教）。 这项研究的结果将被广泛宣传和传播，以阐明同性婚姻的政治，并提供更深入的了解人们在哪里？对同性婚姻的态度。 本论文的研究将有助于对同性关系合法化的具体辩论和政治话语与民主之间的关系更普遍的理解。 更广泛地说，这项研究将与美国政治话语基调的辩论有关：今天的政治话语是否过于极端或过于温和，意识形态差异是否反映了不可调和？文化战争，？还是政治制度人为地将政治辩论的条件限制在意识形态上？中间。 最后，本研究将有助于这场辩论，通过研究人们在不同的社会背景下如何谈论一个有争议的问题，在相似和不同的方式？文化如何促进和限制公共话语。

Pamela E. Oliver (PI), Peter K. Brinson (Co-PI)Institution: University of Wisconsin, MadisonTitle: Doctoral Dissertation Research: Media, Social Context, and Public Discourse0828479AbstractThis research project will examine the process by which different groups of people draw from their cognitive beliefs, attitudes, feelings, and moral values to develop specific opinions about same-sex marriage and civil unions. Data will be gathered through focus group interviews of people living in the American Midwest to analyze how people talk about, conceive, and understand same-sex marriage and unions. One goal is to examine how people mobilize cultural understandings as they construct opinions about contentious issues. This project uses the case of same-sex marriage and civil unions to examine both how people are constrained by the ?structure? of culture, and how people use culture ?pragmatically? in order to make sense of the debate. Focus group participants will be drawn from a variety of already-existing groups in civil society to ensure a diversity of perspectives between groups. The transcripts of the focus group discussion will be coded and analyzed both qualitatively and quantitatively. One level of analysis will identify the discursive similarities and differences among group discussions, including the group dynamics, cultural attitudes and beliefs, frames, points of agreement and disagreement, and argumentative logics and resources. A second level of analysis will relate discursive similarities and differences to differences between groups. Special attention will be given to differences among the ideological and social context of interaction in each group, including discursive differences between the younger and older generations and those between the groups in civil society from which focus groups are drawn (e.g. recreational, religious). The results of this study will be publicized and disseminated broadly in order to shed light on politics of same-sex unions, and provide a greater depth of knowledge about where people?s attitudes about same-sex unions. This dissertation research will contribute both to the specific debate about legalizing same-sex relationships and to the more general understanding of the relationship between political discourse and democracy. More broadly, this research will be relevant to debates about the tenor of political discourse in the United States: whether political discourse today is too extreme or too tepid, whether ideological differences reflect irreconcilable ?culture wars,? or whether the political system artificially constrains the terms of political debate to the ideological ?middle.? Finally, this study will contribute to this debate by examining how people in different social contexts talk about one controversial issue in both similar and different ways?how culture both facilitates and constrains public discourse.